The Treehouse Affair
by burntotears
Summary: What would happen if the Whomping Willow and the Shrieking Shack found love?


**Title:** The Treehouse Affair  
**Rating:** PG  
**Fandom:** Harry Potter  
**Pairing:** Whomping Willow/Shrieking Shack  
**Disclaimer:** I don't own, I just borrow and play with. J.K.s all the way!  
**A/N:** For Shorro. It's a serious pairing. Don't make fun. Love is in the air.  
  
------------------------  
  
It was a good idea. Dumbledore's ideas were usually really good and this one was no exception. It's not as if he could have planned on them getting together. It wasn't something anyone had really heard of before. But then, it did make sense when one thought about it... and maybe stood on one's head while drinking apple juice from a paper sack and singing the national anthem. That usually makes things more clear.  
  
It would have been a fairy tale ending if it just hadn't been for that one mistake...  
  
Oh well, let's start at the beginning of the story so it will make more sense.  
  
---  
  
Dumbledore didn't think it was fair that Remus Lupin couldn't attend Hogwarts just because he was a werewolf. Lupin was a really nice boy and deserved to get his wizarding education just like the rest of the kids. So Dumbledore devised a plan.  
  
Everything worked out fine. Each full moon, Lupin would press the knot on the newly planted Whomping Willow and go through a tunnel to the Shrieking Shack where he could transform in safety and not endanger his life or anyone else's.  
  
When there was no full moon, however, the Willow and Shack had to find things to occupy the dead time. The Shack found it could spend it's time cleaning up after the mess that Lupin would make as a werewolf. That only occupied so many days, however. Then it was left with nothing to do. Any normal shack would grow tired of sitting around with no purpose. It was natural really.  
  
Meanwhile, the Whomping Willow had a harder time finding things to occupy the time. Certainly crushing small birds and lashing out toward any person or thing that came near it provided some excitement, but there were only a few straggling things that would come near it anymore. Needless to say, it was having a hard time trying to have a spot of fun.  
  
It was only natural then, that they find comfort in each other's company. As the days wore on, the Shack and Willow could be seen making their way into the Forbidden Forest more and more. Certainly all they did was enjoy another's company. The Willow complained about having to protect the secret passage and the Shack complained about how it always got the rough end of the transformations. It could be considered a pity party, but to them, it worked.  
  
For months, they kept time accurately, keeping in place when the full moon rose and then using the rest of their nights free to enjoy flourishing friendship. It wasn't until a cold November night that things began to change.  
  
The Shack and the Willow were enjoying a nice time by a fire (non-flammable of course) while having a good chat. The Shack told the Willow of how a girl had snuck her way into the gates of it's home and gotten the wits scared out of her when all the windows began shattering. She ran away crying and screaming and the Shack and Willow laughed together, imagining the girl's fright if she'd had a giant willow branch bearing down on her head as well.  
  
It was that night that the Shack realized that it had different intentions toward the Willow. Certainly she was a good friend, but the Shack wanted more. He wanted comfort and love that, in its windows, only the Willow could provide. So it was that night that the Shack put its moves on the Willow. To make a long story short, the Shack went home with two broken windows and the Willow went home with a sobbing cry through swishing branches.  
  
Everyone was worried. The Willow wouldn't speak to the Shack for weeks and would crush any tree, animal or shop that tried to convince it otherwise. It wasn't until one cloudy night when the Willow heard the Shack crying out in agony... except it wasn't a full moon. Though still angry, curiosity won over the Willow and it made its way over to the Shack to find him slumped over in a sobbing heap.  
  
'Why are you crying?' the Willow inquired, keeping a safe distance between itself and the Shack.  
  
'I hadn't meant to make you angry with me. I... I've fallen in love with you,' sobbed the Shack, feeling ashamed for spilling his feelings so quickly and openly.  
  
'Love? You... love... me?' questioned the Willow, surprised at the declaration. In the forest that it lived in before Dumbledore relocated it, most all the other trees and animals and things found it to be quite revolting and would never come near it. The Willow had always lived alone and without any sort of sentiments from another. The fact that the Shack was telling her this was flattering as well as outright shocking.  
  
The Shack looked somewhat confused. 'Well of course I do. How couldn't I? All you've ever done is protect the only entrance into my shack. You've protected me all day, every day and I... I've never had anyone do that for me. I was built at the same time you were planted... it's as if we were meant for each other.'  
  
The Willow swayed slightly in the breeze, trying to comprehend all of this. 'No one's ever said such things about me. I've never been loved before...' The Willow looked at the Shack.  
  
'Well I love you. The rest of them are fools.' The Shack stood up all the way, looking at the Willow.  
  
'I think... I think I love you too. I was just... afraid.' The Willow nodded at the Shack and wrapped her branches around the Shack, looking into his windows. 'I'm sorry for being angry with you.'  
  
'It's alright, as long as you aren't anymore.'  
  
The Willow nodded. They walked into the Forbidden Forest together, branch in door.  
  
It was also this night that the Willow and Shack forgot their duties. With a long night of passionate embraces, Remus Lupin made his way to the Willow for his nightly transformation and found no willow at all. Panicking, he ran into the Forbidden Forest and when early morning came, the centaurs drug him by the collar to the castle, enraged at a dumbfounded Dumbledore. Needless to say, he requested more caution from the Willow, who took the fall for the night of passion.  
  
It was half a year later when the Willow cam bounding over to the Shack, a bit wobbly and full of excitement. The Willow was pregnant. It hadn't come as a shock to the Shack, as they had wanted to start a family, but it was quite exciting. He couldn't wait to see their little one born and change and grow.  
  
Nine months and two happy parents later, the baby was born. A small tree standing about human height bore a small house upon its branches and would hobble along for a few feet before falling to the ground. They were both extremely proud. The couple had overcome so many odds to be together, raising a child whom would grow up to be a tall tree with a large treehouse upon its branches. It was the fairy tale ending they had hoped for. Or so they thought.  
  
It was Madam Puddifoot's that saw them. She had been making her way down a large trail in the Forbidden Forest to gaze at the stars in a clearing. Her roof clattered as she made her way down the path to the clearing she was in search of. As she neared the clearing, she heard rustling in the trees to the side and stopped dead. She hoped it wasn't a human, or worse, a human with an axe. She shivered slightly at the thought and peered through her small windows into the foliage on the side of the trail.  
  
She could faintly make out a tall, skinny shack and short, plump shop snogging through the branches. _Oh mercy me, not the Shrieking Shack and Honeydukes!_ But it was. Snogging away as if he wasn't a father or a mortgaged shack. _The absolute nerve! The Willow will be crushed!  
_  
And she was. Madam Puddifoot's certainly couldn't keep her door shut (she had a knack for spreading juicy rumors) and soon all of Hogsmeade was buzzing with the news of "The Cheating Shack: Break His Windows and Burn His Boards!" And it was this way that the Willow found out.  
  
Absolutely thunderstruck and terribly humiliated, the Willow took the child into her own care and refused to allow the Shack to see the child. Feeling as if he had been wronged, the Shack took his complaints to the Post Office and ordered a custody battle.  
  
And so it was, as the child came upon year one, the parents the Whomping Willow and the Shrieking Shack sat in the makeshift court area of the Forbidden Forest, ready to battle for the right of their child.  
  
The Three Broomsticks rattled his windows for silence and explain the case, calling the eye witness to testify what she had seen. Saddened by how things had become so hostile between the Shack and the Willow, Madam Puddifoot's made her way to the front of the group slowly.  
  
'It was upon the night, two days after the moon of full, that I made my way into the Forest to gaze at the stars. I did this every night, two days after the moon of full, as it was a custom for myself. It was close to this very clearing that I heard a rustling to the left of the path and stopped. Curious as I am (and rightfully so, I might add) I peered into the trees to see... to see... **the Shrieking Shack and Honeydukes snogging like the dickens!**' She became hysterical, bounding quickly from the clearing with wet windows and clattering insides as the rest of the court was fuming with anger, clanging and shattering loudly.  
  
Calling order once again, The Three Broomsticks asked for the Whomping Willow to the front. Carrying a cloth in a branch, the Willow swished to the front of the group, tears leaking from her bark. 'I wish for sole custody of the child.'  
  
The Shack was outraged, standing and bounding to the front. 'I object! Just because I don't love her anymore doesn't mean I don't love my child!' Angry rattling and swishing of branches could be heard all around. In a rage, the Willow swung a branch at the Shack, who suffered a great whole torn in the side of his upper floor.  
  
'She's unfit to keep the child! She'll end up smashing it to pieces in anger! It's an outrage!'  
  
'No!' the Willow was getting frightened. 'The child is a willow like myself and will be doing the same when it is old enough. It can't live with a parent who will be off shagging any building that flutters her shutters at him!'  
  
Honeydukes bounded toward the Willow, flipping out a board and trying to hit her across the middle. Quicker than she looked, however, the Willow threw out a large branch and shattered the board to pieces. Howling in pain and defeat, Honeydukes fled from the clearing just as Madam Puddifoot's had done.  
  
'Order! A call for order, I say! This has gone far enough!' The Three Broomsticks bounded over the other buildings and plants, silencing them at once. 'After long deliberation and contemplation and some sweeping and mopping, I have come to a conclusion in this case.  
  
'Neither parent is fit to keep the child, as the Willow is too hot tempered and the Shack has not enough attention span to watch over the child. I therefore grant custody to Aragog and Mosag in the Forbidden Forest. The two acromantulas can raise the child with the number of other offspring they already raise. They are fit parents and can benefit from the Whomping of the baby treehouse, who can keep humans and other unwanted things at bay. So orders the Official Court of Hogsmeade! Case is closed!'  
  
---  
  
And now you know. Certainly Dumbledore had meant well by helping young master Lupin attend Hogwarts, but he bit off a bigger bite than he could chew with the Whomping Willow and the Shrieking Shack. To this day, the Willow's rage fumes at full force and the Shack has shagged every building and tree in the vicinity of Hogwarts.  
  
Never has there been a tale that was more whack, than that of the Willow and her love Shack.  
  
-fin- 


End file.
